NOSPR / Rebecca Tong / Daniel Strządała - NOSPR

The two works sharing this programme are linked by strength in its various guises. Jean Sibelius’ Fairy Tale, Op. 9, from 1892, presents it in vital, even primitive music. The Finnish composer’s symphonic poem has no programme, but many observers have discerned landscape images and the powerful moods of a nation living under Russian rule (several years later, patriotic sentiment would be expressed by the same composer’s poem Finlandia). The seven-movement Concerto for organ, timpani and strings, from 1938, is largely a show of energy and violence, and also of the powerful sound of the solo instruments. Francis Poulenc, known for his playful treatment of the musical art, is here – as he himself put it – ‘not the playful Poulenc from the Concerto for two pianos and orchestra, but rather the Poulenc on the road to the monastery’. Wherein lies the strength of music? Today we can grasp it most easily in the moods of Fairy Tale and the Concerto, but also in the power of counterpoint and the temperament of an opening – Mozart’s Overture to The Magic Flute.

[Piotr Mika, translated by John Comber]

Duration of the concert: approx. 60 minutes